mayurisjikoni

Why is it so difficult to get certain basic ingredients?      Now that the wedding is over, its time to invite friends and relatives home to have a look at the photos and dinner. The first family was entertained on Friday. I made  mashed avocado and tomato bruschetta,   sesame honey chilli potatoes , for starters, salad and pizza. I wanted to make some mousse for dessert. Went to the famous Nakumatt to buy some fresh whipping cream. Came home with the packet, opened it and the cream had turned sour. I went back with the packet, receipt and all. The store policy is that if you return any goods, you must buy another one of the same. That means I had to buy another packet of whipping cream. The catch 22 is that the whipping cream and double cream whichever brand name you use, is made by the same company, Brookside. Hoping that the other packet will be fresh, I got it exchanged and went home. Opened it, tasted it and this too was spoilt. So went back... there was no...

sweet bread from Mexico     Conchas (pronounce the ch as in chair) are traditional sweet buns from Mexico. Also known as pan dulce, these sweet rolls have a slightly hard crust and a soft,slightly chewy,sweet inner part. Once you take a bite into the crust, it melts like magic in your mouth. Usually eaten for breakfast, these sweet rolls were a delight to prepare. Though I have to master the correct consistency of the sweet pastry(paste, topping) on top, the taste was heavenly. These sweet buns are known as conchas because of the shell like shape of the pastry created either by making the lines with a sharp knife or with a conchas cutter.    I recently joined the baking eggless group started by Gayathri of  Gayathri's cook spot. I love baking and what better platform to try out various challenges and learn new things? Every month the members are given a recipe which we have to bake without eggs. Joining this group just a few days ago and my first challenge was ...

My first experience with an ice cream maker  My first visit to Canada last year was full of excitement and my son tried to make it special in every respect. He froze loads of blueberries for us as it would have been out of season by the time we reached there. I was obviously excited to try out Neel's ice cream maker. Read the instructions properly, browsed the internet to know to use frozen fruits to make ice cream. There was no one recipe I followed, took what I thought would work for me from here and there and made soft serve blueberry ice cream. My son and hubby were excited but I was like a little kid, over excited. We couldn't even wait to put the ready ice cream in the freezer to let it set a bit more. Soft serve it was for dessert.    I really couldn't believe how easy it was to make the ice cream. The left over ice cream was put away in a freeze proof container and into freezer. The next day in our excitement to have the ice cream we forget to a picture of the wel...

Should that be the veggie national dish of UK?      Its really baffling that though mogo, cassava, tapioca, yuca does not grow in UK, every Indian restaurant will offer mogo as a starter. Be it chilli mogo, garlic mogo, garlic chilli mogo, chilli garlic mogo, dry or with gravy,fried. I still have to come across a popular Indian restaurant in UK not serving this dish. It seems it is a popular dish among the Indians. Everytime we go out for dinner as a family(huge one), mogo is always ordered. I tasted this dish for the first time in a popular Indian restaurant we had gone to years back.      A few days ago, Esther my veggie lady as I call her, brought fresh mogo and insisted that I buy some (she grows them on her farm). I bought it not knowing what I will do with it. Suddenly, dinner idea came to my mind and I was going to fry it but then thought of garlic chilli mogo and my mouth started watering. None of the Indian restaurants serve that here so I had to m...

a perfect winter soup      My son had bought 6 coloured peppers, forgetting that his dad does not like them. Hubby dear claims that even the sweet peppers make his tummy burn. Every evening my son would remind me to make something with the peppers before they get spoilt. With a few I made roasted sweet pepper pesto and with the rest I made some soup. For hubby dear I made mushroom soup. It was raining that day in Montreal, so hot soup was a treat to ward off the cold. The first spoon full went into his mouth and my son immediately commended that it's an excellent soup for winter. I tried out this soup for the first time and had to blog it so that it can be repeated again. Browsed through many recipes and taking tips from here and there put the soup together in a pot.     The idea of using ready made stock does not come to my mind easily as it's not available in Kenya. A few days ago my son made his style of broccoli soup(it was absolutely yummy) and used vegeta...

with rice or noodles?     Before you read further, this particular recipe got left in the draft section and I forgot all about it. So publishing it today, hope you enjoy it.     In the month of February our Lions Club of Mombasa Bahari hosted an essay writing competition for students from the ages 11+. This is an annual event, but each year brings its own surprises. What impressed me was that this year most of the students had lovely handwriting which is a miracle considering that lots of school work is done on computers these days. However, I noticed that all of them printed the letters and none wrote in joint handwriting. Does this mean that schools no longer teach the children cursive writing? Isn't joint writing or cursive writing faster? While taking a round to check out what the students were doing and if they needed anything, I noticed one student had a calculator on his desk. I asked him what he was doing with the calculator as this was not a math contest. H...

Greens are good collard spinach swiss chard kale  The different types of greens available in the market can be quite confusing. Vegetable sellers  use a common word for most greens. Spinach is loosely used to describe swiss chard and spinach is palak only etc. The most common greens that are available in Kenya are collards which is known as sukuma wiki, spinach which is commonly known as palak and swiss chard which is called spinach. Confused?? Me too !!! However, whatever name these greensare known by, are rich in Vitamin C and A and a good source of fiber.These greens are often used in soups, stews, curries, on its own as a side dish, in salads, with eggs, meat, as a filling etc.The options are endless.     The rains bring fresh succulent leaves of all sorts. Whatever we buy, have to washed thoroughly to remove mud, any worms and insects. I bought a huge bunch of swiss chard recently and made a nutritious and filling soup. Though hubby dear finds this weather ...